


I Will Always Find You, Any Place Any Time

by Dylanobrienisbatman



Series: Blarke [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Immortal, Alternate Universe - Past, Alternate Universe - Present, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bellamy is 2000 years old, F/M, First Kiss, Multi-Era, POV Bellamy Blake, POV Clarke Griffin, They meet, because obviously, clarke is a time traveller, more characters and relationships added as the story progresses, more tags added as the story progresses, they fall in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:40:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12122736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dylanobrienisbatman/pseuds/Dylanobrienisbatman
Summary: Bellamy is immortal, and almost 2,000 years old, and Clarke is a time traveller. Their encounters early on are sporadic and confusing at best, but after about 1000 years, Clarke gets the time travelling thing worked out, and their relationship starts to shift into something neither of them expected.





	1. And So It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Bellamy is an immortal, really, but when he meets a mysterious blonde woman dressed in strange clothes, he's just a 20 year old roman boy. 
> 
> Clarke is just 19 when she stumbles into a time machine and is thrown into the Visigoth kingdom to meet a man who says he's known her for hundreds of years. Which makes sense, considering the time machine. 
> 
> This is how they meet, and some timeline background! The next chapter is where the story really starts!

They've known one another for centuries, if you look at the actual timeline, but its really far more confusing then that. If you asked Bellamy how long they had known each other, he'd say millennia, but then he'd also have to say that really the amount of time they had spent together only added up to about 4 years, combining all the scattered days, spanning over about 15 years of her life. Sometimes he'd see her once a year, sometimes he wouldn't see her for many years, only to spend weeks with her. The timelines of their lives were so fractured, but he looked forward to every meeting, and dreaded the last.

If you asked Clarke how long they'd known each other, it would depend on when you asked, because she seemed to find him randomly, and never quite in order, for Bellamy anyway. The first time he met her, she had already been meeting him for years, on sparsely placed dates, and the first time she met him, he had known he had known her for centuries of his own life. To say their relationship was confusing was the understatement of the universe, is what he was trying to say.

Bellamy was immortal, and had been since he turned 26 years old, in 48 A.D.. Now, in 2017, he was 1,995 years old, and he was really very tired. He was born in 22 A.D., in a small village near Athens, and had grown up with a very small world to get to know. He knew of the leaders and rulers of the time, but the world you knew was much smaller then. He was gifted immortality by Athena, the goddess, after a plea from his dying mother to protect him and his sister was taken a little too literally. Not only would they never age, but they also could never die. His sister had taken too it far better then he, at first, and for centuries they lived side by side, but the loss that came with infinite life took its toll on her, and she left him. She wrote, and when phones came around she called, and now they texted, and emailed, and facetimed, but she was a nomad, always moving. He would travel out to find her, ever couple of years, but she never stayed in any place long enough for him, and so she would move on, every year or so, and he would find a new home every 15-20 years.

He had immersed himself in the history of the times he had lived through, to the best of his ability. He kept an ear to the ground, finding himself in Cleopatra's court, at Caesar's side, in the halls of Henry VIII's castles with Anne Boleyn, whatever he could do to keep himself at the edge of history. It fascinated him to know that these events would be written about, and so he made a point of putting himself there, and eventually started writing things down himself, keeping heavy journals by different names throughout his life, and "finding" them during the 19th and 20th century, to help record the history he had lived. But perhaps the most interesting part of his personal history, was Clarke.

The first time he met Clarke he was just 20 years old, she called him out by name, leaping to hug him in the town square, in Rome in 42 A.D.. He was an aide to Julius Caesar at the time, and had never seen this strangely dressed, yellow haired woman before in his life. Octavia was still with him, neither of them immortal yet, and was just as shocked as he was when the girl began speaking quickly about something he was meant to have told her, sometime before. She seemed to slowly piece together that he had no idea who she was, and asked if "this was the beginning for him", whatever that was supposed to mean. She begged him eat with her, so she could explain, and she told him the most insane story of his own future, where he had met her many times, and she was his friend and confidant, and her eyes seemed to say there was something more between them. She pulled a stack of parchment, bound in leather, which she called a book, from her bag, with a look of realisation on her face that was strange to see, and told him to keep written stories of their meetings, from then on, so when they met she would be able to know how far they were in their story. Her pages were worn, and her book full of scribbles and drawings, and he thought she was insane. He kept the book at her earnest pleading, and she kissed him softly on the cheek before rushing off and disappearing. He did as she asked, and wrote about their meeting on the first page of the book, and he didn't see her again for another 322 years.

The first time Clarke met him was in 578. He was living in what is now Spain, in an area controlled by the Visigoths, working as a scribe in a church, when she arrived. He knew she was coming, because she had told him that in their first meeting he already knew she was coming, so that must have meant she had already told him. Looking back now it seems very chicken or the egg to him. He left his post around midday and found her in a field. She was younger then any other time he had seen her, she said she was just barely 19, but he recognised her clear as day. He found her quickly, and led her to a safe place, and told her where she was and how she arrived. He didn't know her well yet, as they'd only met a handful of times, because at first, between 364 AD and 578, she had been learning how to use the machine, and so over a span of about 6 months for her she had only managed to work out about 60 visits, all concentrating early on in their relationship for both of them. He told her as much as he could about how he knew her, and how she could get home, and gave her her own leather bound book, telling her about their tradition of writing things down for one another, so when they would meet they could keep track. 

Clarke was from the year 3483, at the age of 19 when they first met, and had access to a time machine. Her first trip had been an accident, she had run from her mother, in a fit of rage after the death of her father, and had ended up flinging herself back in time. After that, she would use the machine to escape when her life became too troubled to handle, leading her to Bellamy every single time except once. The second time she had time travelled she had gone into the future, and had been unable to find him, but after that, she travelled back into the past. It turned out that the machine had been built by one of his decedents, or his sisters, and they had programmed the machine to connect to their familial DNA, in an attempt to learn more about their past, but the machine had been given as a gift to Clarke's family before his distant family member could use it. The Griffins had never attempted to use the machine, until Clarke stumbled upon him, and once she discovered that it led to him, she would use him as her escape.  She had seen him far into his own future many times before the first time he met her, but their timelines were a little jumbled. The first time she had met him, they had known each other for close to 500 years in his life, and the first time he had met her had been close to 4 years of her own life, consistently coming back and finding him in different parts of his. The 300 year gap between his very first encounter with her and his second was not even the shortest of the gaps he had encountered, which became harder once he got to know her. Because of some strange glitch in her machine, he didn't see her once between 739 and 1396, over 650 years. 

Between 578 and 739, the visits had been rather consistent, about once or twice a year, scattered through her life in great variety. Each dive into her journals was an adventure, sometimes with almost no new information, meaning he was ahead in their relationship, and sometimes with dates he couldn't even imagine being real, so far in his own future that he refused to read. She always read ahead, wanting to know as much as she could, and he always refused, wanting his own future to be a surprise. Her absence, for all those hundreds of years, was difficult for him, now that he knew her. He missed her presence, as she had become one of the only constant things in his life, but luckily for him, their adventure was just beginning. 


	2. Will You Be There For Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke shows up, finally, but she's having a really hard time, and she just needs Bellamy to be there for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sort of short, just getting into my groove! hope you like it, and keep reading! I just needed to get past the first meet up after their long absence before i start really delving into their relationship!

1396, Croatia:

Bellamy has been living his life without Clarke for over 650 years. He knew she had been real, this strange blip, a string of strange encounters with a girl from the future, who always seemed to have something sarcastic to say and had golden hair that refused to stay tied back away from her face. She was a bright blip in his past, but he had spent centuries now trying to convince himself she hadn't been just a dream. Until one day, a bright, warm August morning, he woke to a knock on his door, earlier than was particularly appropriate, opening it to find her standing outside, shivering despite the warmth, in a short sleeve shirt, blue eyes encircled by a ring of red, puffy skin and tears streaming down her cheeks. He ushered her inside, his mind spinning, finding a blanket to wrap around her as he led her to a seat on the floor by the fire burning in his hearth, his brain stammering to find the words to say to someone he hadn't seen in almost 7 centuries. Her tears were accompanied with sobs now, heavy, from deep inside her body, choking out and making her shake with whatever sadness had brought them to her. She was consumed by it, whatever it was, but she had come to him. He wasn't sure how she had even found him, he never had been really sure, because she would just appear at his door, no matter how long it had been since she had last seen him, and here she was again. She had come to him, while being wracked with some sort of sadness, so he obliged her, sitting behind her and pulling her in between his legs, leaning against his small, wooden table and wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight. She sank into him, letting her head loll back into his shoulder, and cried. 

After almost an hour, her sobs reduced to small sniffles, and she seemed to become aware of her surroundings. She slowly detangled herself from his limbs, wiping her cheeks, reaching for her bag. She fished through, pulling out her journal, and motioning it towards him. She seemed less than eager to talk, so he humoured her. Honestly, even though he knew there was no way it had been even close to as long for her as it had been for him, the sight of the journal still surprised him. He stood, walking over to the trunk where he had tucked his away for safe keeping so so long ago, and brought it back to her. The pages of his book were yellowed, the cover dusty, the leather cracked, but preserved in the trunk, wrapped in animal skins and cloth to keep it safe from the elements. She took the journal gratefully, almost seeming glad she he didn't push her. She read through every page of his journal, slowly, before closing it gently and looking up at him.

"I think were at the same place this time," her eyes were watering a little, the grief creeping back into them, though he wasn't sure she had ever pushed it all the way down. He took her hands in his own, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. 

"What happened Clarke?" her name felt foreign on his tongue, but familiar in a way that was comforting. "We can talk more about all this," he motioned too the journals, "after, trust me i've got loads to tell you, but whats wrong?" He reached up to wipe a stray tear that was hanging off her jaw, tucking her loose golden strands behind her ear. Her eyes watered, a soft hiccup escaping her throat, and she leaned into his hand. 

"I found out this morning," Her voice wavered, cracking over the words, shaky and weak. His heart broke for her. "My fathers death, two years ago, it wasn't an accident, like we thought. It was my mother. She arranged the whole thing, she set him up to _die_ to avoid being caught with hi-" She was crying again, tears streaming down her cheeks, "caught with his videos about an uprising. He was planning a political move, a revolution of sorts, against our current Prime Minister, and she knew and she killed him before he could do it. All because the PM had offered her a place on his High Council." Her voice was laced with disgust and contempt, somehow managing to be venomous at the same time as it was shaking from the tears. He pulled her into him again, tucking her face into his chest and hands rubbing her back gently like he used to do for Octavia after their mother passed. She curled into him, and they just sat, for what seemed like hours. He spoke to her, telling her myths and legends he knew, telling her stories of Octavia and his mother, and eventually listening while she told him stories of her father, of his life, of their best memories. By the end, deep into the night, she was laughing, her eyes still deep with grief, but her smile light and easy again. She fell asleep on his bed, he on a pallet he made himself on the floor, and when he woke in the morning she was still there, confirming that he hadn't dreamt her return. He was cooking sausages over the fire when she finally woke, and padding softly across the floor, curling into a chair, a blanket still around her shoulders. He slid the plate across the table to her, tucking into his own as they sat in silence together. She smiled gently, scraping the last piece of her food off her plate, and slid her journal across the table walking over to get his from the top of the trunk. She thumbed through, smiling. 

"We have to know where to start our stories today," she said, mouth half full of potatoes still. "So what year are we in, anyway?" 

"well...," he paused, tentative, "it's 1396." 

Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. She grabbed the journal, flipping through frantically to find the last date he had recorded. He watched her do the mental math, rolling over the numbers in her head, until she yelled out, "SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY SEVEN YEARS!!" She was standing now, her hands in the air, pacing. "You haven't seen me in SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS!!! How does that even happen?!" She seemed exasperated, which was endearing for some reason. 

"How long has it been for you?" He asked, gentle, trying to calm her. She shot him an exasperated look, which made him laugh under his breath.

"Does it even matter? Its no where near SIX HUNDR-" He cut her off, quick. "Yes Clarke, 657 years. But its okay. Really its okay." He smiled at her, catching her flailing hands. "How long has it been for you?" He asked again. 

"A month." Her voice was small, soft and little sad. She looked almost ashamed. He scoffed, gentle. "How on earth did you mess that one up?" he teased, all light joking in his voice, trying to make her feel better. 

"I have no idea, honestly." She said, her voice meek, but a light giggle barely noticeable underneath. "I guess you have a lot of stories to tell me, then." He nodded, giving her a warm smile. He helped her fit into one of the dresses he kept around for Octavia, and they wandered through the streets of Zadar, his town. He told her about how he had stumbled upon this city, and helped start the first university in Croatia, the University of Zadar, and how he was a teacher there, for writing and reading. He told her stories of his last few centuries, over lunch and dinner and late night warm drinks on the beach, looking out over the Adriatic Sea. When she left him that night, she curled into his chest, letting him wrap himself around her, and pressed a warm kiss into the side of his neck, promising to return sooner this time. As her blue eyes disappeared behind the doors of her time machine, his mind had one thought. 

He hoped she would keep her promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come hang with me on [Tumblr](http://dylanobrienisbatman.tumblr.com/) or [Tumblr](http://lindsey-debnam-carey.tumblr.com/) if you wanna, whatever you prefer - B


	3. You Already Know Me Better, Don't You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke appears at Bellamy's door again, they've been visiting pretty consistently now, but this time she's ahead, pretty far ahead, and something had changed...

1428, Switzerland:

When Clarke shows up at his door in 1428, it’s not surprising. He had seen her a couple times in the last 30 or so years, he’d say about three. So her showing up in and of itself wasn’t surprising. But her age was. She had to be at least 24, but every time he had seen her in the last 30 years she had been barely 21. At first he didn’t notice, but then he saw it in her eyes, and the way she moved, even in her hair, which was chopped short, all loose waves brushing against the tops of her shoulders. Her appearance was enough to make him guess that she was some time ahead of him in their story, unless she had stopped visiting him for a while and had just made it back, but the air of familiarity she expressed towards him was enough to tell him that was not the case. She had thrown herself into his arms when she arrived, burying her face in his neck, pressing a kiss into his jaw bone, wet and warm enough to make him shudder a little, and when she pulled away her eyes were dark and full of mischief and something kind that he couldn’t place. He came back to himself when he took in her appearance, a tank top and a heavy work jumpsuit, tucked into sturdy work boots. Clearly not from the 13th century. 

"We have to get you inside," he stuttered out, "quickly!" He led her into his home, shutting the door hard behind her and closing the shutters on his windows. She huffed out laughter at his exasperation, smiling at him all warm and endearing. 

"what is going on Bell?" She had never called him that before, and his mind raced, wondering how far ahead she was, what had changed. Them being out of order had always thrilled her, but it made him uncomfortable. He didn't like not knowing what would come next when she did. He minded less when he was ahead of her, because he felt secure in the story, and she was always so thrilled. 

"Its 1428, we're in Valais, and the witch hunts started this year." He said, once he could sit, burying his head in his hands for a moment while his heart rate slowed down. 

"Oh..." she seemed disappointed, a little, and he looked up to catch a sad look in her eyes. "I'm really far ahead this time." She never liked being the one who was ahead, because he never let her tell him what was going to happen. He didn't like "spoilers" as she called them, but he also sort of liked how annoyed she was when she couldn't tell him. He'd never tell her that though, of course. 

"Yeah it seems like it... The last time I saw you, you were 21." She nodded, the wistful look in her eyes becoming something deeper. 

"A lot happens between now for you and now for me, Bellamy." The look was still there, heavy on her whole body in a way that didn't make sense. He was sure it would eventually. "But thats okay, thats half the fun of it all, right?" she didn't sound entirely convinced of her own opinion, but he let her have it. "lets go do something! i've never been to Switzerland!" 

"We should find you some clothes first, you don't exactly... blend in." He muttered. She smiled, and let him lead the way. 

They went next door to the orphanage owned by his neighbour, Indra. He had found this place after tracking down Octavia almost 6 years prior, finding her here, having followed Indra to continue her fight training. She was trying to become a Knight. When O had disappeared off into the dark of night, he had stayed, finding work with Indra and the children, teaching them to read. Indra knew about their story, so she was a safe place to take Clarke to find clothes. They found her a dress, and went off into the city to find a pub. He tossed coins on the counter, for two plates, and they spent the evening eating, picking off one another's plates, and talking about his life for the last few years, their legs tangled together under the table, her laughter ringing through the room. 

The moon was high in the sky when the barkeep, Mbege, urged them not unkindly out the door. She laced their fingers together when they moved out into the night, tugging his jacket around her at the chilled night air. She tugged him close, her hand around his upper arm, their bodies brushing as they moved, talking at a soft volume as they meandered through the town to his house. They walked lazily down his street, a stroll at most, and she seemed to melt into him, even just holding her hand started to blur the line where he ended and she began. They arrived at his house, and he untangled himself to start a fire in his stove while she took the dress of and found a long linen shirt in his trunk. There was something more comfortable about the way she was with him, the way she didn't seem to care if he turned and saw her bare skin, miles and miles of it, before she pulled on his shirt, the way she tucked herself into the side of his bed he didn't sleep on like she knew where he was going to want to be. He slid into bed with her, after trying to make a palette for himself on the floor, only to hear her scoff and look up to her pulling the blankets back for him. She curled herself into his back, and he fell asleep to the smell of her hair fanning across his pillow, the feeling of her arm around him and her legs tangled with his, and the promise of something bigger. 

The morning came, as it always did, but this time it seemed to come faster, much to his great disappointment. She was wrapped in his arms, her cold nose brushing his clavicle, her arms tucked under his, wrapped around his back, and he wasn't sure he wasn't dreaming. He had always pushed the thoughts of Clarke, in that way, out of his mind. When they had first met she had been too young, and then she had been gone for too long, and then it just seemed... impossible. Like she would always be just beyond his grasp. But in this moment, she was right in reach, literally wrapped in him, like his mind was always wrapped in her, and his heart was beating faster than he had ever felt it beat in his long long life, pounding, in his ears, he could feel it in all his limbs, and his breath was short and laboured in his chest. He tried to slow his breathing a little, to let her sleep, but her face was in his chest, brushing against his bare skin, her warm breath washing over him, which was decidedly unhelpful. She started to stir, making soft mewling sounds as she woke, stretching her limbs as much as she could without breaking their embrace, and then, to his great surprise, she pressed herself up just enough and kissed him, warm and gentle, and so familiar that it answered every single question that had been bubbling in the back of his mind about what had changed between them. There was no way she would kiss him, this familiar and soft, if they hadn't... evolved in his own future. She must have sensed his hesitation, because he froze when she pressed her lips to his own, and she pulled away, still clearly half asleep, before her eyes widened in shock, and then fear, and then a look of wild terror took over her face. She scrambled to pull herself away, uncoordinated and flailing, but he held her snug to him,putting a hand on her cheek, urging her to look him in the eye. 

"I've been wondering since you got here what was different about you, about the way you were with me... about us i guess." He spoke soft, brushing his lips across her forehead, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes, relaxing a little in his arms. "I didn't want to ask, because you know I don't like 'spoilers', but..." he was breathing right against her lips now, and she was quivering against him, but not from the chill outside the blankets. He moved his mouth close to the shell of her ear. "Maybe you could show me what's changed, just this once?" The whimper that came from her lips when he breathed the words, soft, but raspy against her was obscene, and he wasn't positive his vision wouldn't have gone white if his eyes had been open. As it was, he opened them now, and found her looking right at him, the ocean blue of her eyes a thin ring around her pupils, eye lids heavy, the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. He ducked his head down just enough, to meet her already searching lips, and slowly rolled them till he was pressing her down into the bed. She kissed him soft, slow, easy, like she was as used to this as she was to breathing. The bright sunshine streaming through the window danced across her face, her hair almost an extension of the light, like sunshine spun into physical form. They kissed for a while, just lying there together, letting their bodies meld together, until her stomach growled under him, breaking the spell. They got up, slowly and not entirely willing, to find something to satisfy the hunger that had suddenly gripped both of them. They found an easy rhythm with one another, moving in tandem, like a dance. They swirled around each other, cooking and laughing, dancing to music no one could hear. They settled into the table, heavy bread and warm tea, honey and fresh butter on the table, her legs thrown across his lap as they ate. 

"So tell me what happened" he coaxed, over his cup of tea. She smiled, soft as always. 

"How much do you want to know?" 

"As much as you think you can tell me," he answered, "not too much though... no spoilers." he teased. 

She spent the next few hours slowly picking apart the story, telling him generally how their story had progressed. She skipped over parts of the story, only telling him things that wouldn't give anything away. When she got to the end of her story, she tucked herself into his arms, pulling him down for another kiss, before getting back into her time machine and dissolving away. 

She visited him a few more times in the next few years, her ever ahead, him still behind, and he fell more in love with her. It would be another 150 years before she returned to him younger, 21 and bright again. 

Her last visit before then, she told him not to share this part of their story with her younger self, not just yet. She asked him to wait, and to let her find out in the way she was meant too. So when she showed up, all those 150 years later, younger again, his heart stuttered in his chest, because he knew, for her, their love story was just about to begin. 


	4. I like when you're ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke stumbles into Bellamy's life in the Elizabethan Era, and he makes it hard for her to leave.

1585, London:

Clarke stumbled into the time machine and yanked the door shut behind her, and yanked the lever. The small inconvenience of this machine was that it didn't necessarily let you choose the date you wanted to go too. You pulled down to go into the past, and pushed up to go into the future, but she hadn't really figured out how to be more specific than that. She was almost 22 years old, and her life had been spiralling, which meant, as usual, that she was going to find Bellamy. The machine shuddered to a stop, and she climbed out into a street with bustling people, horse drawn carriages, in front of a small bookshop. Of course. She darts inside to find a blonde girl sitting at the counter, counting coins, who was startled by Clarke's appearance.

"Master Blake! A woman is here..." she seemed puzzled, which Clarke had gotten used too by now. Anytime she fell into history with Bellamy they were always surprised that she was in spaces with him, as a woman, or they were puzzled by her clothing. She always tried to make it as simple as possible, but sometimes, like today, she was in a rush to get away, and she just forgot to care. It had annoyed her the first few times, but now it amused her. She had been finding Bellamy throughout history for 6 years, regularly for her though not very consistently for him she'd admit. The time machine just seemed to drop her wherever it pleased, there was no clear way to direct it to a particular era. Obviously this meant they never made plans, and he just learned to be on the look out for her. Sometimes she see him when he barely knew her, which was always thrilling, getting to see him younger, see a part of his life she felt like she missed, but she liked the times he knew her better most. It was like coming home in a way she couldn't explain. She heard his voice calling from the back, and felt it again.

"A woman, Harper?" he paused, and then, in the most knowing way that made her giddy, he called back, "let me guess. Yellow hair, blue eyes, dressed rather oddly." She could almost hear the laughter in his voice, and did hear the shuffle of his books after Harper called back to him, confirming his suspicions. She bounced on the balls of her feet until his dark hair and freckled skin came into view around the corner, and she flung herself into his waiting arms. Every time she encountered him, he looked exactly the same, sometimes different facial hair, sometimes different hair styles, but always young, eternally so, with sun tanned, beautiful brown skin, freckles like constellations on his cheeks, smattering down his shoulders, his dark eyes warm and full of some emotion she had trouble really placing. Like coming home.

He led her, fingers laced, to his back room, Harper blushing all the while, and fished his journal out from under a stack of rolled parchments. He kept it hidden, always cautious of the chance that someone could stumble across it, this unexplainable writing too insane to be real, and yet fully true. She tugged hers out from the back of the waistband of her jeans, and they settled on either sides of his table, her feet kicked up on his knees, drinking him in as he flipped through his book. He was rather far in, meaning he was ahead of her this time, which made her smile. She always liked to read ahead, to see what adventures she hadn't had yet, which always made him cluck his tongue and roll his eyes.

"What would you have said to her if you were wrong, and it wasn't me?" she said, laughing a little as she flipped through her own book.

"I knew to expect you, you told me last time i saw you that you were coming soon, it was in your book." he smiled, soft and with his head down in his book, but she saw it. "I'm not letting you read ahead this time, you can only read to here." He passed her his book, a page marked with a thin bookmark, and she was sure she looked entirely offended. "I'm much much farther ahead of you this time, you told me so last time. Told me not to let you read ahead. You should really stop doing that, you know. I never know if it was my own idea to do it that gives you an idea or if you telling me is what makes me do it. It is very confusing." he was teasing her, his eyes light, dancing at her, and she was so warm.

"Fine," she rolled her eyes at him passing her book across, "i'm behind anyway, so don't worry. no spoilers." he laughed at the phrase. She had explained to him what it meant the first time she had used it with him, and he had become enamoured with the phrase. He had told her it was the perfect way to explain how he felt about his future. He would whisper it to her sometimes when she was leaving him, soft in her ear, a reminder, and she'd get chills to her toes. "What year is it?"

"1585," he loved catching her up on their whereabouts. He had his hands resting on her ankles, his thumb gentle stroking the exposed skin there in a way that felt more familiar than she was used too, but also seemed so natural to him that she didn't dare stop him. The air of this visit seemed different, almost pregnant with possibility. "We're in London, well, south west London. Near Hampton Court Palace. Queen Elizabeth is on the throne." He winked at her, his eyes darker than she had ever seen them when she looked up to see him staring at her. She stuck her tongue out at him, revelling in the fact that she was mere miles from Queen Elizabeth I herself, while also sort of revelling in the way his eyes couldn't seem to pull themselves away from her. Something was different for him, which meant that their future held something exciting for her. She was giddy with the thought. She was always giddy when it came to him.

They puttered through the books, making warm chit chat about her life since she had last seen him, about the time he was living in, about the last time he had seen his sister. Clarke had only met Octavia twice, once the first time he met her, and once when she stumbled on him in the early 1800's in Prague, where he was visiting her. His hands never left her ankles, and her heart rate never slowed.

"How long are you staying this time?" He asked, when they were walking back to his home. The store had closed with them still chatting in the back, Harper peeking in to bid them goodnight, wishing Clarke well. She was sweet, all golden hair and sun tanned skin, a look of mischief around her that really explained how she had ended up with Bellamy. He had been telling Clarke about Harper and her girlfriend, which Bellamy called her "maiden friend", Monroe. She was a tough girl, apprentice to a blacksmith, and Bellamy laughed slightly over telling Clarke about how he had caught them kissing once in the back of the store before he had hired Harper. Having been alive for thousands of years, his views on things like that were much more advanced than the time he was stuck in.

"Maybe a few days, if you'll have me," a rhetorical question, "I just needed to get away. My mom is... being my mom again." He smiled, reaching under the cloak he had draped over her to hide her modern clothing to hold her hand, and then walked in silence together, just existing.

They were sitting over dinner, discussing the possibility of Bellamy getting her an invitation to see the Queen. There was some kind of ball at the Queen's court in three days, and Bellamy had a knack for wrangling invitations from important people to important events by "happening" upon some artefact of old that he had tucked into one of his many trunks somewhere, and offering it as a gift. He was sure he could manage, a smile dancing across his lips as he handed her a plate of warm bread, and some sort of thick stew. The house was small, and cute, full of warmth and books, all very Bellamy in a way that made her heart ache for the time they spent apart. He had somehow become her best friend, in their strange time spent together, the best friend she had ever had, the friend she couldn't tell anyone about. He was her safe place. Planning things, on this trip, to stay for a few days, giving them time to just exist in the same place for a while, was the most calming thing she had done in a long time, and it made her feel good, in a way that sort of made her feel like maybe her life was going to be alright in times that were hard.

They spent the evening talking, late into the night, over warm tea and then rich wine, until they were drunk and laughing at nothing, legs tangled on the floor of his kitchen, hearts full. He made himself a cot in the main room of the little house, leaving her his bed, like he always did, because he was unfailingly kind and giving no matter the era, and she fell asleep in furs that smelled of him, drunk off the wine and the feeling of being with him again. She woke in the morning warm, and feeling safe, to the smell of eggs frying. She padded out into the kitchen, sitting cross legged on a chair and waiting for him to notice her. He was humming a tune she didn't know, that sounded old, older than 1585, older than she could guess. He turned, and was unsurprisingly not surprised, instead carrying a plate and a cup of tea, sliding them to her before grabbing his own and sitting across from her. He laughed a little at what was undoubtably fierce bedhead, and they made plans to find her some era appropriate clothes for her stay, and she was floating.

The next two days were like a dream, just the two of them floating through life together. She sometimes liked to imagine what it would be like to have been born during a time where he was around, and have lived her whole life by his side, and the times when she would visit him and stay a little while were like manifestations of those fantasies, always better than she could have ever imagined. Waking up every morning to him humming, the sun warming her skin while she read, across the room from him while he kneaded bread or built a fire. She would curl up around him on his bed at night and let him tell her stories about his past until the moon was high in the sky and she was struggling to keep her eyes open, always wanting to fight him as he slid away from her and out of the bed, covering her with a warm fur and sleeping on his cot in the other room. Living like this, it was something she could get used too. 

The night of the ball, which he had unsurprisingly scored an invitation too, she dressed in a beautiful gown Harper had loaned her, who had also tied her hair up in a beautiful knot, and powdered her face. She was busy spinning in front of the small dusty mirrors when Bellamy walked in, hair slicked back, in a beautiful outfit, handsome as she'd ever seen him. Her heart jumped in her chest, which would have surprised her if she hadn't felt it in her throat all weekend. He took her arm, to a carriage outside, and she felt like maybe this must be what that centuries old fairytale, Cinderella, had felt like, except this girl had gone looking for her prince, and Clarke was sure that her prince was by her side. The night was a whirlwind, meeting Queen Elizabeth was a mind blowing encounter, and she assumed she was appropriately entranced by her Highness, the food was decadent, as you would always imagine it to be, and the night, she was sure, would be remembered in glittering warmth in her mind. Most importantly, most shiny in her head, would be dancing with Bellamy. 

He had to be tugged onto the dance floor, when a song with a quick step came on, and the attendees paired off, all except the two of them, and the Queen's eyes had noticed, and she had pulled him on the floor in response. His hand came to her waist, clasping the other high, hers on his shoulder, space staying firmly between them, and they spun to the music. They were usually very talkative, she never ran out of things to say to him, and he never seemed to have enough stories to tell her (1500 years of life will do that to a guy), but in this moment, they were silent. It was comfortable, but charged in a way that she wasn't used too. She ached to know what had happened in her own future to change the way they existed together, but she knew he'd never tell, so she just danced with him, eyes burning through each other, her heart racing but her mind calm, in the moment with him. The song changed, slow and smooth, and he tugged her close. She lay her head on his chest, the heat of him burning through his clothes to her cheek, his heart beat audible even through the music, and they swayed together. She felt him press a kiss into her hair, his chin coming to rest atop her head, and it made her brave. She lifted her head, slowly, hoping not to startle him, looking up into his eyes, she found that soft indescribable look again. His hand came to rest on the side of her face, and she leaned into the feeling of his skin, as he brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, and her heart was in her throat. She reached up, her hand mirroring his, on his own face, sliding back into the hair at the nape of his neck, the inky black curls soft against her fingers, and gently tugged him down, until they were nose to nose. Her own breathing was laboured, the intimacy of this moment, the possibility of what it might mean, but his face was still so soft, so indescribably soft, that she felt safe, like she always did with him. He brushed his nose against hers, angling his chin just so, and she pressed up on her toes just enough, and they were kissing. 

It was soft, and in no way urgent, Bellamy kissed like a man with all the time in the world. She supposed thats because that's exactly what he was. His lips were soft, if a little chapped, and the kiss was all pressure, warm and gentle. Their hands didn't roam, this was a public space, in the presence of royalty, but the kiss was heavy in a way she didn't really know how to explain. They spent the rest of the night dancing, stealing kisses under the candle light, and strolling back to his home hand in hand, skipping the carriage in favour of a long walk home, him carrying her heels as they walked, laughter ringing through the quiet night. Back at his house, she slipped into her tshirt, and caught his hand when he tried to walk to the cot, pulling him into the bed. She curled around him, pressing a kiss to his sternum, and they slept, warm, wrapped in one another, and happy. 

She left the next morning, and it was the most difficult one yet. She hugged him as close as she could, burying her face into his clothes, breathing in his smell and feeling him beneath her hands, memorising these moments. She saw him regularly, for her, but she had no idea what they would be like when she saw him next. would she be back in his past, before this? before everything changed? He pulled her close for a kiss outside the house where the time machine had dropped, long, slow, always like he had all the time in the world, before she stepped into the machine, and they kept eye contact until she phased out of his reality and back into her own. The feeling of him still lingered when she opened her book in her cold bedroom, and detailed every second she could remember of their visit, knowing he was doing the same made her heart swell. Connected, through time and space, through millennia, by these books, and by some growing feeling... not so indescribable anymore... she thought it might be love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come hang with me on [Tumblr](http://dylanobrienisbatman.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D>Tumblr</a>%20or%20<a%20href=) if you wanna, whatever you prefer - B

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out on [Tumblr](http://dylanobrienisbatman.tumblr.com/) with me, or on [Tumblr](https://lindsey-debnam-carey.tumblr.com/) with me and my [pal](http://broadwaybound2016.tumblr.com/)! whichever you prefer really! - B


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